hadn’t slept. She’d barely spent ten minutes in the inn, just long enough to change out of her Almachadtan clothes and into the sandals, divided skirt, and strappy undershirt she’d worn in most of Samudra. She is back on the walls of Rifton now, far distant from where she had found Aurelius. She focuses on the feeling of strange metal under her hands, the way her unbound hair pools below her, the stillness of her body as she holds the handstand as long as she can until her muscles burn.
No song playing
Up next: 0 songs
1 listening
- The Dragon
Scene Archives
← Active ScenesThe High Walls of Rifton, II
#saint
#saranzaya
ꙮ Metal, under your hands, instead of rock or earth, and they certainly never built this high up back home. The further up you are the fewer hills and mountainlets are in the way of being able to see the Beast’s curvature with your own two eyes, too, which is certainly a novel sensation. The wind, too, feels different here - on the Beast, and on the Beast up this high.
is not thinking of the fact that she cannot hold this pose for much longer. She is think of the wind, and how different it is here, and how easy a thing it is to take for granted.
ꙮ There’s a particularly playfully-strong gust, but strangely, it doesn’t threaten to knock her off balance. What might, though, is hearing Saranzaya’s voice, from the hatchway you use to get up on the tippy-top parapets of the wall.
: “Salme! Mind if I join you up here?” She’s clearly just been to the baths; you could swear her hair’s still steaming, and she’s got on something much simpler, although still predominantly satiny and red, than she was wearing earlier.
thinks it’s sort of cute that you think Saranzaya’s voice would be enough to startle her. Maybe half a day (or a full day?) ago, but she’s a changed woman now, you know. She rolls forward into a neat tumble and stands. “I mean, you’re welcome to, but I can’t say it’s terribly exciting.”
does note the changed outfit and steaming hair. “Finally allowed to relax after running all your errands?”
ꙮ Well, I said it might. I didn’t say how likely I thought it’d be.
looks slightly wry and very very slightly residually-disgusted, although the baths definitely helped. “That and ended up up to my ears in horrifying fiend guts. Lucxja and I went on an adventure, you see.” She does -something- with the word ‘adventure’ that is Indicative of the Sort of Adventure that it Was. She’s ambling the rest of the way, and leans out over the wall looking down onto Rifton.
: “Hmm. Well. Sorry about the fiend guts, but at least you got to enjoy a nice bath?” She goes over to look down onto Rifton as well. “What do you see?”
looks thoughtful, for a few moments. “I see people that I hope I’ll have the strength to protect. I might should get out of Queenstown more often.”
: “Seems like a lot of people for one person to protect,” she observes neutrally.
: “Stars, I’m glad I’m not the -only- one. I’d go mad from shame.” She cants her head towards Salme, slightly. “Still, sometimes it feels like everyone who’s ever sent a messenger to Queenstown is of-Clan and under my protection. The Queen would get mad at me and say that’s her job, not mine.” A smile.
: “And yet you’ve made it as much your job as it is hers.” She tilts a glance at Saranzaya. “You spoke to Aurelius,” she says, as if she knows, even if she’s only mostly-certain. “Though I’m not sure if you sought me out because of that or some other reason. Would you like to tell me? I bite, but I suspect you do too.”
nods, immediately, the smile on the corners of her mouth playing up a bit and winning out over the concern glancing down at Rifton. “It was a good conversation. Didn’t realise how badly I needed it. And he mentioned his girlfriend, which then immediately alleviated my worry that I’d called that one wrong and managed to make things even more awkward, and made me resolved to come find you and properly say hello after my work was done. And then his girlfriend was camped out on the walls, and now I’m here.”
: “Oh, so that was you guessing and not something SQ had somehow managed to figure out through Bird Bullshit? That’s a kind of relief.” She blows out a breath between her teeth, and laughs a little. “And he called me his girlfriend,” she says, a little more quietly, a smile playing at her mouth. “Of course he did.” ⁂
: “He probably needed it as well, you know. I’m not sure what Annarr was like, but Aurelius—he’s still learning himself, thinking, feeling, sorting through things. I tried to help and I think I did in part, but,” she shrugs. “I can’t always read him. I can only trust him.” ⁂
turns and faces Saranzaya fully then. “And I’d like to reintroduce myself, if you’d be willing to play along. I got too in my head by Aury not introducing me as his anything. My name is Salme, and I’m a storyteller from a world of flourishing gnosis called Almachadta. I’m dating the person the friend you loved dearly ended up becoming, and I love him with everything that I am.” She gives that elegant, almost theatrical curtsy. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Dreamer Saranzaya, vice-Queen of the Beast.”
🙧
listens, and waits, and several comments come to mind but Salme is speaking and she shan’t interrupt, there’ll be time for that later, and then Salme is introducing herself, which is, after all what Saranzaya came here in the hopes of. Well, one thing, anyways. And as she introduces herself, she keeps smiling more and more. “Vice-Queen of the Beast, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before. Don’t hate it.” She gives a gnawingly-familiar elegant bow in return. “Although, just Saranzaya is fine. Or even Zaya. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and to welcome you to the Beast.” She looks up at the sky, at the break in the arc of moons that should be parading through. “Such as it is at the moment.”
notes the bow, remembers—remembers. She smiles. “Oh. First secret. Sometimes I use formal titles when I’m trying to be fond. But thank you, Zaya.” She follows her gaze to the arc of the moons.
: “It’s still beautiful. Still worth fighting for,” she says softly.
looks amused. “I’d say you had me at a disadvantage, then, because I don’t have any formal titles for you, but I bet one’s hiding out in my reading material for the train back to Queenstown.” And a nod, to the latter comment. “Aye. Nothing that could change that. The Beast’s never been… tidy, but she’s always been mine.” She lets there be a companionable silence, before: “How dangerous a question is ‘what does Bird Bullshit mean’?”
laughs, brightly, wild, and maybe the wind stirs her hair a bit more. “Not sure it’s dangerous. Possibly irrelevant? Did Aurelius mention anything about … other lives? Other selves? Aside from Annarr, I mean.”
: “Well. I asked Aurelius if he, or– some part of him knew the Queen, somehow, because of the way she talked about things when I managed to pry something out of her, and -that- felt like a dangerous question to ask, and then he mentioned that he knew her as ‘Crimson’. That there was a time before she was the Scorpion Queen. Which. I’m still mulling all of that over. What any of that could possibly even mean and if it changes anything. I think you might be right about it being irrelevant? But also do you know how hard it is to not ask a question that’s sitting there in front of me and taunting me like a rambunctious gaelikitten?”
and then Salme laughs, and laughs, and laughs. “Can’t relate,” she says. “I always ask the question, no matter how dangerous it is. Always. Anyway, I’m happy to tell you whatever I know. I may even understand it better than Aurelius does at this point for—reasons that are really stupid.”
also laughs, harmonious to hers. “I didn’t -used- to be cautious, I swear. My first reaction to the Queen was to challenge her to a duel before she could challenge -me-. Gave her a run for her Lucre, too, she’ll even admit it.” She shakes her head, laughing. “I just… if it has to do with her, if it’s– if there’s a way that I could help her, or understand her better, I’d like to. She’s been– I told Luce this, I even told Aurelius this, and I don’t even know him well enough to, it just felt like I do– she’s cared so little, lately, about anything that she used to love. And then– somehow she knew that you six were on your way, and she looked like she was interested in the world again for the first time in… a year? Two years? -Definitely- a month or so. So if nothing else, I love all of you for that alone already.”
: “And if she’s got some kind of secret epistemological shitshow she’s been keeping away from me, I want to know so I can challenge her to another duel about it once she’s done with the six of you. I’ll lose, but it’ll make me feel better.”
: “I don’t know much about her—The Scorpion Queen. Crimson is a name I’ve heard. Alice was another one, once.” She takes a breath. “Some of us have led other lives. Aurelius. Your Queen. Someone who … talks a lot on the Linkpearl but who I’ve never met. Maybe one of our other companions, but I haven’t asked him for … several reasons. I’m not one of them, which I only mention so you know this is all second hand. Anyway, the thing you need to remember is that no matter what those other lives looked like, the person in front of you is fully themselves,” she holds Zaya’s gaze for an uncannily long time, like she’s trying to sear that truth into her. “Those other lives are not always particularly loud or particularly present. I don’t know what it’s like for your queen. I do know …” ⁂
gives Salme a long glance back and the corner of her mouth curves up in a smile and something in her expression says ‘that was not in question’ but also ‘but I appreciate your priorities’ but, again, she remains studiously silent. A Look, however, that can be responded to.
smiles at the look. “His name is Jorule, Aurelius’ other self. You can talk to him on the Linkpearl if you’d like, though I’m not sure how useful he’d be in analyzing your queen’s behavior. He’s been a lot of different people, lived a lot of different worlds. Aurelius remembers some of them, in a weird, blurry, disconnected way. Jorule was … the first, I think, and it’s his memories that Aurelius has.” She laughs a bit. “Anyway, Jorule can … very rarely, manifest in place of Aurelius, and the first couple times he did he had these big, inky wings. I started calling him a bird, even though that obviously wasn’t what was being signified. So. Bird Bullshit refers to any of the stuff that touches on that past. Other lives, other worlds. The actual term, I’m lead to understand, is either ‘Angel’ or ‘Pure Heart.’”
🙧
straightens up, suddenly, looking distant. “–‘those with a pure heart can go to another world’. I suppose that does– I’ve always had my suspicions about her. I know she’s not– she’s more than just metahuman. She’s been here forever, and she’ll be here long after any of us are gone. I knew all of that, I’ve always known all of that.” She relaxes, again, against the parapet. “Thank you. For explaining all of that. I think I owe -you- an answer, now?”
: “Hmm,” she says, carefully, and then, “you can say no. You can also tell me you don’t know. But these lines are about you.” She closes her eyes, and then recites, in an approximation of the rhythm but not the tune, “Dormant muscles twitch beneath the metal skin. / All see, but only I observe and take note. / I hold the eternal flame in my hand and in my heart. / I’ve told every story this world has to tell, / but there is no word for this truth.” She opens her eyes and looks at her. “Any thoughts on what that might mean?”
lets herself relax, lets herself listen, and say the very first thing that comes to mind, which is: “I’m talking about the Beast. I’m talking about the Beast, and nobody else is, nobody else can see her suffering.” A beat. “Except I don’t think that’s true, any more, because Luce has seen it too.”
nods then. “Forgive me. I’m going to tell you something and it might be a bit lengthy to explain, but I’d rather someone tell you than have you read it in the Tomestone.” She takes a breath. “There are at least five planes, and they have existed for at least 250,000 years, but no more than 280,000. Each seems to correspond to one gnosis type. Wolf and I come from Almachadta, flourishing. Archie from Samudra, pellucid. Aurelius and Luĉja the Beast, burning. Mu is radiant, and no one from our party comes from there. Valaïs, tenebrous, but Awoken does not remember anything about it. We’ve been to Almachadta and Samudra and both of them are dying. I would be shocked if the Beast was not also dying.” ⁂
takes another breath, this one shaky. “I’m called the Sword-Saint on my plane. It is a formal title and it is a very specific role.” She appears the Mask from a satchel that really has no business existing in this outfit. “We keep memories. We tell stories. But we bear a secret, which is that eventually, Almachadta—there is hunger, and there is fire, and then … the world dies and is reborn. It’s happened 216 times so far and the Mask is the only thing that persists knowledge between those cycles.” ⁂
: “The solution seems to be a tripartite weave of gnosis. Almachadta needs burning and pellucid, Samudra burning and flourishing. The Beast almost certainly needs flourishing and pellucid. I don’t know how to accomplish that. We think all five planes were maybe one, once, long ago. But she is suffering.” And she rests a hand on her shoulder, steady and sure and ready to offer a hug if Zaya desires it. “I am sorry you had to bear that truth alone. I am glad Luĉja is here to bear it with you. And I’m glad you’re with us now to figure out how to fucking stop it.”
🙧
listens, again. It seems like she’s rather good at that. And, yeah, she’ll take the hug that’s offered. Softly: “Is it. Is it very very strange that hearing all of this feels like a -relief- to me? That– this is definitely something she would say but if all of this is right, if I’m not– the only one seeing it and saying it, then it’s a problem I can do something about, rather than sit around and…” –she trails off, several pieces suddenly clicking into place for her.
: “Oh, stars. She knows, doesn’t she. Of course she knows.”
: “How could she not.”
: “She knows, and…”
🙧
wraps her arm around Zaya’s shoulders and then, when she trails off, pulls her into a hug with both arms. “And?” She prompts.
returns that hug, too. “And with all her strength, -her- answer was to… sink into Desolation? That doesn’t make any sense. She doesn’t -believe- in problems she can’t solve.”
: “Do you … want to tell me about her? Because while I’ve been at this a while and have a lot of answers, I can’t—fuck, Zaya, you must’ve been miserable. Knowing this, losing your friends, having your queen be so not herself.” And then quieter, but full of feeling, “I’m so sorry.”
holds her head high. “Confused. Confused, more than miserable, and I’m still confused, but– differently.” She shakes her head. “Add more fuel to the fire, and the flames rise again. Luce is back, there are strangers here with– some answers and open arms. And someone who’s got my friend’s eyes and face, who seems like he’s going to be a friend himself, looks as happy as a hedgemole in soft soil. Next it’ll be her turn to turn around.” It’s uttered as a statement of faith.
: “Well at the very least Jorule will be annoying enough to elicit some kind of reaction from her. I complete have faith in him.” She steps back from the hug and looks at her. “It might be more confusing and it’ll probably be dumb, but that’ll happen. And then you’ll find your way through to her.” ⁂
does shift from one foot to another, opens her mouth, closes it. “As for Aurelius, I—there’s no one more reliable. I’m going to be a real cool girlfriend and not get jealous about encouraging this beautiful, talented, determined woman to get to know him. Light knows I don’t have a leg to stand on as I do have two partners myself. But. He won’t let you down. He’s never let me down. And I haven’t made it easy for him.” 🙧
glances at Salme and, very very briefly fails to control the brief look on her face like she just won a bet with herself. “Ah, no, Sword-Saint. There’s certainly someone among your party who I could see myself having my eye on in that regard, but–“ –she looks the kind of amused that made it out the other side of being sad. “–Annarr always did make me wonder. Aurelius offered to- tell me what Annarr’s thoughts on the matter were, that he never said aloud, but I thought it was most appropriate to let his memory be silent on the matter. It wouldn’t have changed anything, anyways. Aurelius, though– he seems happy, and I’m glad. I think all of you are lucky to have each other, from what little I’ve been able to see. I’m going to be insufferably watching you three the whole train ride, by the way.” She shrugs unapologetically.
blinks, for one brief moment completely and utterly confused. “If not Aury who else would you possibly interested in?” And then because she has at least some sense of propriety, waves the thought away. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m nosy and weird but not that nosy and weird. Anyway, you can watch us the whole train ride. I’ll probably be glued to his side.” She huffs a laugh. “I know this has been a fuckton of shit to hear, but … would you answer one more question for me?”
smiles beatifically at Salme. “You’re currently one up on me for answers against questions, so I’d appreciate being asked one I will answer, yes. Fire away.”
: “So Annarr, when he was Annarr, with the ears and the tail. Did he. Emote with them?”
lets out a surprised cackle. “Oh, stars, no. I noticed Aurelius kept up that trend? It always made me feel insane, I’m used to metahumans being incredibly -easy- to read. I think if I’d seen Aurelius walk up with his tail wagging and his ears twitching I might have died from shock on the spot, honestly, so I’m calling that a stroke of good fortune.”
: “I don’t know whether that makes me feel more or less insane. Like. I’ll occasionally get an ear flick? Once he smacked me with his tail. But otherwise he’s absolutely inscrutable. And my … well, my closest approximation of a father-figure is a metahuman too, and he’s so easy to read that … like, the last time I saw him I kind of got embarrassed?” She shakes her head in wonder and … a little bit of awe. ⁂
: “I did see him get really expressive once, but it was when he was channeling some other non-Jorule life. And, also, right after he had absolutely mopped the floor with me during a Rite.” 🙧
: “Okay, yeah, no, Annarr got fired up during Rites too, it was pretty adorable? But that was– that was it. My condolences on being the one now faced with his inscrutability, Salme.” Profoundly solemnly, and barely keeping a straight face: “It is a heavy burden to bear.”
: “And yet I bear it, wholly and lovingly,” she says with an equally straight face, before breaking out into laughter. “Okay, okay. That’s … thank you. Also. Thanks. For coming to seek me out. It’s … nice.” She smiles at her. “I’ve never … this is going to sound really silly, but I’ve never actually been friends with another woman? Just wasn’t how the cards fell. So. I hope. Well. I assume. I mean. I don’t know. It’s nice.”
smiles at her, and bows her head slightly. “Then I’m even happier that you’re willing to consider me a friend, Salme. And if there’s anything you need, or anything I can provide for you or your friends, while you’re here? I said this to Aurelius and Luce already and I’ll say it to each of you individually if you give me the chance– don’t hesitate to ask. In a way that matters, we’ve been battle-kin before we knew each other; what’s ours is yours. Also, I like all of you quite a bit already.”
: “Thank you. And, much in the same way, I knew you would always be a part of this adventure we’re having as soon as I knew your name. Both while we’re here and even when we aren’t.” She considers her. “Battle-kin goes both ways. Anything I can provide I will.” She says ‘Battle-kin’ like she’s been saying the word her whole life, and maybe it makes a certain kind of sense. “Maybe, perhaps, we could chat a bit more where you show me where the baths are in this city? I am a bit of a mess.” She dramatically shakes out her tangled curls.
: “Oh, absolutely. And– let me show you the baths in Queenstown, once we get there? Not to disparage Rifton but the baths here simply can’t hold a candle to the baths at home.”
: “Oh yeah, it’s a plan. I have been promised wonders and I plan to demand them.”
: “And with wonders shall you be presented, friend.”